Boviet Solar has secured a module supply order for 255 MW in the US; Duke Energy commissions 74.9 MW PV project; ForeFront and Hannon Armstrong partner for 131 MW distributed PV portfolio; Petition for Hawaii Governor to not sign SB 2510 into a law.
Boviet Solar gets 255 MW module order: An unidentified but leading global renewable energy developer has contracted Boviet Solar to supply 255 MW of solar PV modules to the company in the US. Boviet Solar will supply its high efficiency Vega Series with 550W PERC monocrystalline bifacial double glass modules for this order. The module supplier said these panels will be deployed for a utility scale solar project without sharing any more details. In April 2022, Boviet Solar said it has renamed its bifacial series as Vega and monofacial modules as Gamma, naming these after stars, while also announcing plans to venture into N-TOPCon and heterojunction (HJT) cell technologies (see Boviet Solar To Explore TOPCon & HJT).
74.9 MW solar facility online in Florida: Duke Energy has energized the 1st of its 10 solar sites with a combined capacity of 750 MW, in Florida’s Hardee County. Fort Green Renewable Energy Center with 74.9 MW capacity is equipped with some 265,000 solar panels deployed on a fixed tilt racking system spread on 500 acres of repurposed mining land. All of this 750 MW is part of the utility’s new community solar program called Clean Energy Connection under which customers can subscribe to kW blocks of solar power. The monthly subscription fee of $8.35 per kW will help pay for the cost of construction and operation of solar power plants and is added to the customer’s regular electric bill.
Partnership for 131 MW distributed solar portfolio: Commercial and industrial (C&I) solar and storage projects developer ForeFront Power has partnered with climate solutions investor Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure Capital for 131 MW portfolio of distributed solar and solar+storage projects. They will create an equity investment platform for the shared ownership of projects in the portfolio that are spread across 10 states. Some of these are already operational, while the others are scheduled to come online in 2022. For ForeFront, this investment brings it an additional source of capital and for Hannon the partnership for behind-the-meter (BTM) solar diversifies its investment in the distributed generation market.
VETO SB 2510 petition garnering support: A petition on Change.org regarding Hawaii’s SB 2510 has secured 338 signatures out of 500 (as on June 14, 2022) it needs to be featured in recommendations. Started by Sunspear Energy CEO Jeff Kaemmerlen, the petition is gathering support to urge Hawaiian Governor David Ige to use his veto power and stop the bill from becoming a law in its present state. The bill wants to achieve at least 55% of firm renewable energy generation for each of its islands which is defined as energy available round the clock. It identifies intermittent renewable energy as something that does not qualify as firm renewable energy. The bill was recently cleared by the legislature. Kaemmerlen believes the bill if turned into a law will penalize solar and storage technologies, and tip the scales in favor of expensive and high emission biomass or biofuel projects. “This flawed bill would effectively kill critically needed solar development on Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and Lanai which are proudly beyond, or approaching, the solar limit that this bill sets with an arbitrary 45% cap,” reads the petition.
